The term libertine evokes a certain licentiousness in sexual mores, combined, however, with a healthy dose of nonconformism, a rejection of established rules. The libertine is a womanizer, but also a rebel. He is transgression and vital energy. Giovanni, the protagonist of Marco Cassardo's new novel " Camera singola" (Mondadori, 2026, pp. 240, also available as an e-book), is a half-libertine, with the handbrake constantly on at too many points in his life.
Nearing retirement age after an honest (and secret) career as a librarian, he can confidently say of himself: "I was a child who was afraid of everything. Now I'm a thousand years old, but nothing has changed." The only sphere that seemed to provide him with some satisfaction, and in which fears gave way to boldness, was always sexual. Guided by an unerringly selective erotic impulse, he always moved through the female universe with an ancient and effortless dexterity, guided by the feline attention of an unrepentant libertine. He pursued solitude like an obsession, punctuating it with satisfying rituals. Furthermore, he carefully avoided cutting the umbilical cord that tied him to his mother. A mother who, from an early age, did everything she could to ensure that Giovanni cultivated fear rather than courage, resignation rather than ambition, melancholy rather than joy in life.
But what happens to a man like this, a man who has always lived for his libido, when desire begins to wane? What happens when he must confront the death of that virility that has always been his only public expression and his sole rock in a sea of hesitations and sacrifices? Naturally, the new reality of "impotence" forces Giovanni to rethink his relationships with women, starting with his mother, who suffers from dementia and is in a nursing home. There are new acquaintances, new temptations, ghosts from the past, the gallery of loves: a whole life returns, from childhood onward, to the present, a present marked by the "betrayal" of that part of the body, the penis, which throughout his life had served as an outlet for his inhibitions and frustrations. Giovanni discovers his own weaknesses, he sees his body abandoning him without his mind and spirit being able to support him. And after all, they never did. He discovers himself as he faces a transformative journey, where his changing body becomes the measure of what the protagonist can no longer be, as a man and as a son . Marco Cassardo moves through these human meanders with a kind of lightness and merciless grace, unafraid to push his writing into an undoubtedly uncomfortable, somewhat disturbing and repulsive subject matter.